Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

Nothing at all, I might say, all the more so because when I had set out on my walk, I believed my life was so miserably hopeless, so over, so terminated and therefore certainly terminable, that the best I could hope for was a pleasant last walk before taking a bunch of sleeping pills; the reason the story I invented along the way turned out so neatly was also that I felt I'd reached the end of something in my life, but my hands and feet and brain, my whole body, came to the rescue: they did their job smartly, decisively, maturely, perhaps even rather too eagerly, and in the meantime the so-called ego could do little more than scream like a little child: "I want to go home! I want to go home!" somebody did seem to be screaming within me, a somebody known as myself, and for all I know I may have been screaming and crying; at any rate, that was the real me; and my desperate, cowardly terror was humiliating, stayed with me, suppressed every other memory; the ludicrous way the storm put me in my place — a storm that I'd tended to consider as a well-painted backdrop, an effective musical accompaniment to my emotions — was matched by the equally ludicrous way my own nature deprived me of my supposed autonomy: the fact of the matter is, nothing happened; I got a little wet— all right, sopping wet, which meant that at worst I might catch cold; the skin on my forehead was lacerated, maybe the flesh, too, just a little, but it would surely heal; my nose began to bleed but then stopped; I lost consciousness for a time but then came to; yet my body, trying to escape, forcefully mobilized all its necessary animal instincts, as if it were in mortal danger rather than merely exposed to mild insults, like a lizard seeing the inevitable end in every stirring shadow; but more important, the body acted as if the ego, fed by its intense emotions, had not wished for death at all; and the knowledge of nothingness not only showed me that all these past experiences I had imagined as so grandly excessive were in fact ridiculously trivial but also intimated that whatever was yet to come would be no more significant; I was exposed, I was but a receptacle of trivialities, and for all my awareness of what was happening to me, or what might still happen, consciousness was completely useless.

Dawn was slowly approaching; outside, the wind raged on.

My clothes were drying on the radiator and I was standing naked examining myself in the mirror of my hotel room, when there was a knock on the door.

I knew it was the police, and I shuddered, not because I was afraid but because I was naked, yet I didn't care that much, I was totally absorbed in the sight of my naked body, and my shudder wasn't so much a response to the knock, a habitual reaction dictated by decency, as an outward manifestation of total inner exposure which at that moment held my attention more than any anticipated event possibly could.

Why did this particular wish surface — the wish to go home — if not completely unexpectedly, then surprisingly and with such far-reaching implications? why did the body, seeking its own safety, choose to save and have my consciousness articulate this word "home" and why did it both seem so inane and yet also carry a most profound meaning, even if I was at a loss to say what?

Before the knocking, I had to touch the bruise on my forehead to feel what I was seeing in the mirror, to feel the mild pain this superficial cut caused, to perceive the sight and its physical sensation simultaneously; then I passed my finger down the bridge of my nose, my lips, my chin, not ever forgetting that the full-length mirror screwed to the closet door reflected the whole body, just as the story of a single touch always has the whole body for both its hero and its setting; though I tried to guide my finger at an even pace, it seemed to linger on my lips, or maybe the effect of the touch went deeper; then I reached my neck; a small lamp with a waxed-paper shade stood on the night table behind me, and in its faint yellow light the mirror showed the contours of my body more than its detailed, full image: proceeding along the arched rim of the collarbone from the shoulder, I descended into the soft hollow formed by the neck muscles where the bones meet, whence my finger would have moved rapidly across the chest hair toward the dip of the navel, and along the abdomen's gentle bulge to reach and firmly grasp the genitals, the most satisfying spot of physical self-awareness; but my body started, acknowledging the knock on the door.

In truth, I hadn't the slightest desire to go home, none whatsoever; in this regard, my behavior on the previous night had been very telling: in the almost totally dark entranceway Frau Kühnert, blanking out the attractive nakedness of her face, pushed her glasses back on her nose, and the faint light from the paper-capped wall fixture behind her, as if reflected in her glasses from the inside, made her eyes disappear; I could barely see her face, but I sensed her unexpected retreat, maybe from a conspicuous shift in her posture; my rebuff, ostensibly a response to her lengthy plea and explanation, alluded to our possible lust for each other and she wasn't going to endure so gross a humiliation, for all her inclination to servility; her neck stiffened, straightened, and now, looking down at me, she seemed to be retreating to the safer and more conventional forms of social intercourse appropriate for the relationship between an attentive landlady and an ever amiable, pleasant lodger; she straightened her back, too, eliminating the slightly stooped posture meant to protect her breasts — she was finding her way back to that tactful formality which had characterized our former contacts; but the moment I felt this about to happen, happening, already having happened, I felt like someone who has suddenly lost control of himself, who realizes that with sheer will he has destroyed something far more important than his will: I'd finally managed to sever the imperious, coarsely sensual bond between us that might have led to hate or to love; a moment ago, with some recklessness either one would have been possible, it was only a matter of decision; but this, this switch to unpleasantly cool formality, was totally unexpected; against my better judgment, I would have liked quickly to return to the dangerous but potentially more valuable form of behavior which Frau Kühnert was ready to abandon, but which became markedly important, given the tension and pressure it produced in my groin, and this importance was being plainly communicated to me — not to the point of a full erection, but more in the form of a threat with a hint of possible extortion; when I told her I was going to disappear for good, I was actually alluding to the possibility of suicide, not to going home; and I wasn't disappointed, for this unclearly phrased, ambiguous statement had exactly the effect on her I intended: she was surprised, though I don't suppose she understood what I really had in mind; the secret intention I had been nursing for months, which had matured into a decision, must have deepened my voice so that I could imply the necessary sincerity and seriousness to draw her back into the magnetic field she had been trying to escape; what I was hoping to accomplish, aside from gratifying my ego, I cannot say — perhaps, in light of my imminent death, I wanted to be pitied, or perhaps it would have been too unpleasant to be left alone with the telegram, though I knew that whatever it said, it could not change my mind; in answering her questions, eager and weighing every possible danger I might be facing, I did not say what I really wanted; I didn't tell her, for example, to leave me alone, that nothing mattered anymore, that she was too late anyway, but if she wanted she could take off her pullover and let me close my eyes at last, I didn't want to see anything, I didn't want to know or hear anything anymore, so let's try to work on a single moment, and why not this one, we should be able to manage that much — but instead of saying that, I reminded myself of a previously attempted solution and I described my intended return home as a reassuring form of disappearance; of course, this was only another way of avoiding her, and myself, because at that moment the word "home" meant nothing more than a distant hope of no real significance; I used it then as a tactful lie: and here in the mirror of the hotel room was this body now, and though neither its sight nor its palpable feel could convince me of the importance or necessity of its continued existence, yet I could not have named anything to prove my unavoidable presence more than this image in the mirror.